The Power of Fun: Why fun is the key to a happy and healthy life

by Catherine Price

old line about how “you just had to be there.”

And be sure to take note of anything proactive that you did that sparked fun. Like, for example, this experience someone wrote to me about, which apparently was directly inspired by her participation in the Fun Squad. Today I was standing on the diving board of my parents’ pool, fully clothed, talking to my mother. I had this urge to jump into the pool with all of my clothes on. But I kept talking, kept nodding along in the conversation. And then I let out a humongous childish laugh and jumped into the pool. First of all, I want to be friends with that person. And second, I think it’s a great metaphor. We are all standing at the edge of a pool of potential fun. We’re tempted by it but can’t quite bring ourselves to jump. The trick is learning how to shed our inhibitions, say yes to our inner urges, and find the courage to dive in.

Obsessed with productivity, we end up with no hobbies. Consumed by the pursuit of “connections,” we have no time for friends.

Our responsibilities, anxiety, and distractions leave us drained and tired, with little energy for our own interests, or the passions we used to have before life got in the way; our to-do lists feel endless, and yet rarely include anything that would count as play. Instead, we spend our days consuming and reacting, toggling between tabs on our computers before we go home and collapse on the couch, where we self-soothe with substances and screens until it’s time for sleep. When our alarms go off, we wake up, already exhausted, reach for our phones (which are on our bedside tables, if not under our pillows), see the lists of emails to be answered and news stories to be read and social media posts to be scrolled through—all other people’s priorities—and are thrust back into reaction mode as another day begins.

Our lives, in other words, have become like my parents’ house: functional, and in many ways quite comfortable—most of us probably wouldn’t want to pack...

Rodsky points out that much of the mental load comes from the conception and planning, whereas most of the credit goes to the person who completed the execution. This imbalance is one of the main sources of resentment among couples.

If you know that you have a large task to accomplish—like, say,

writing a book—you need to carve out time for it. Otherwise, the less important activities, such as (oh, I don’t know) checking the news or your email, are going to sap your focus and energy, and you’ll have no steam left for your most meaningful tasks. This is a recipe for frustration and exhaustion.

daily list of your “not-to-dos.” This is a chance to clear space in your schedule by preemptively identifying your most time-sucking activities and consciously deciding not to let them hijack your day. (During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the friend who told me about the planner sent me a photo of her own “not-to-do” list for the day: 1. Facebook 2. Zillow 3. Despair.)

Many of us have collected commitments in the same way that other people collect bobblehead dolls: we start with just a few, and then over time, they start to accumulate, sometimes seemingly on their own. Eventually we end up with so many of them that they spill out of our tchotchke cabinets and begin to take over the house.

How many of your obligations are mandatory, and how many have you taken on by choice? Of the ones that you have voluntarily assumed, how many do you enjoy?

To make it easier to catch yourself, I recommend a two-step process. Start by putting a rubber band or hair tie around your phone. This way, when you reach for your phone on autopilot, you’ll be interrupted by a physical impediment. Part of your brain will wonder, even if only for a split second, “Why is there a rubber band around my phone?” When that happens, the next step is to ask yourself a series of questions that will help you better understand why you reached for your phone, which in turn will enable you to proactively decide whether you want to be on your phone in that moment. I call this exercise WWW, which is short for: What for? Why now? What else?

The basic idea is to use the concept of “friction” to make it harder to fall into the habits you’re trying to change, and easier to engage in the ones you’re trying to establish. Friction is a term often used by Silicon Valley types to refer to any sort of impediment that might make it incrementally harder or less convenient to interact with their products. For example, unlocking your phone used to require you to actually type in a code. Then came fingerprint readers, and then facial recognition. Each of these steps reduced friction. Now, instead of having to consciously think, “I want to check my phone,” and physically type in a series of numbers, all you need to do to activate your phone is to look at it.

“The popular assumption is that no skills are involved in enjoying free time, and that anybody can do it. Yet the evidence suggests the opposite: free time is more difficult to enjoy than work. Having leisure at one’s disposal does not improve the quality of life unless one knows how to use it effectively, and it is by no means something one learns automatically.” —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

Lastly, interests, hobbies, and passions give us skills and knowledge that can help us slip into flow in more contexts—and the more we’re in flow, the more alive we will feel.

You can’t get out of bed in the morning and boldly proclaim, “Today, I shall have True Fun,” both because that’s vague, and because True Fun is an emotional experience that does not respond well to plans. You can, however, say, “Today I will do the crossword” or “Today, I will try a new recipe” or “Today, I’ll read

a bit of that novel.” Unlike fun, you can put hobbies, interests, and passions on your calendar.

I’m interested in learning about … • I’m curious about … • I’d like to try … • I’d like to get better at … • It might sound silly, but I’d love to … • When I was a child I enjoyed … • Things I used to do with my free time but don’t anymore: … • Things I always say I want to do or learn, but supposedly don’t have time for: … • I feel alive when I … I recommend that you set a timer for fifteen minutes and write down everything that comes to mind. Keep going until the timer stops; sometimes your most interesting ideas will come after you’ve exhausted your initial burst. Again, do not self-censor as you do this or set the bar too high. Nothing is too niche or too silly, and anything that sparks even mild interest or curiosity is good enough to write down. Also, don’t assume that you actually have to do all the things you come up with. We’re not trying to overwhelm ourselves with new commitments; we’re just trying to open our minds and break out of our normal patterns of thought.

Pie Madness also illustrates one of the paradoxical things about playgrounds that professional bringer-together-of-people Priya Parker points out in her excellent book, The Art of Gathering—namely, that “rules can create an imaginary, transient world that is actually more playful than your everyday gathering.”

In the words of Priya Parker, “Most of us remain on autopilot when we bring people together, following stale formulas, hoping that the chemistry of a good meeting, conference, or party will somehow take care

of itself, that thrilling results will magically emerge from the usual staid inputs.22 It is almost always a vain hope.” Instead, she writes, “Gatherings crackle and flourish when real thought goes into them, when (often invisible) structure is baked into them, and when a host has the curiosity, willingness, and generosity of spirit to try.”23 They succeed, in other words, when their host has built a playground.

As bestselling author Michael Lewis points out, “People don’t want to have a boring life, or even a boring conversation.31 They’re just risk averse. If you create an environment where there’s no reason to be afraid, all of a sudden things loosen up.” In other words, if someone is standing awkwardly on the sidelines, whether metaphorically or literally, it’s probably not because they don’t want to have fun. They’re just waiting for an invitation.

In short, it’s like Walt Whitman said: we contain multitudes. We can be silly and serious, responsible and rebellious, mature and childlike—and in fact, the more we harness the positive powers of rebellion and allow our playful streaks to shine, the more energy we’ll have for everything else.

“We do not quit playing because we grow old. We grow old because we quit playing.” —Oliver Wendell Holmes

If I have convinced you of nothing else, I hope it is this: fun isn’t just a result of human thriving; it is a cause. Fun encourages engagement with the world. It invigorates us and nourishes us. It brings us together. It reminds us of who we used to be—and who we want to be. Put it all together and my daughter was right: True Fun is sunshine. In its purest form, it is a distillation of life’s energy, and the more often we bask in it, the more our lives will blossom in its light.